The richness of Chinese names Analyses of personal names with special reference to Zuǒ Zhuàn Bao Yue M.A. Thesis in East Asian Studies Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF OSLO 1 Table of contents Preface .................................................................................................................. 4 1 Introduction.......................................................................................................5 1.1 Importance of names........................................................................................... 5 1.2 Bibliography on personal names..........................................................................7 1.3 Selection of my topic..........................................................................................11 1.4 Structure and presentation ................................................................................ 14 2 History review of Chinese names.......................................................17 2.1 Basic structures and history of Chinese names..................................................18 2.2 Women's names..................................................................................................27 2.3 The development of Chinese names...................................................................29 3 Research material review........................................................................33 3.1 Sources of Zuǒ Zhuàn .......................................................................................33 3.2 Time of Zuǒ Zhuàn........................................................................................... 35 3.3 Basic structure and style of Zuǒ Zhuàn............................................................ 38 4 Euphony in Personals names............................................................... 42 5 Analysis of surnames................................................................................ 60 5.1 The relationship between family names and clan names ................................. 60 5.2 Family names from Zuǒ Zhuàn..........................................................................61 5.3 Clan names from Zuǒ Zhuàn............................................................................. 68 5.4 The development of family names and clan names ......................................... 71 6 Noble titles and posthumous names from Zuǒ Zhuàn.......... 73 6.1 Root of noble titles from Zuǒ Zhuàn ................................................................ 73 6.2 The apparent chaos of noble titles in Zuǒ Zhuàn ............................................. 78 2 6.3 Posthumous names from Zuǒ Zhuàn ................................................................ 79 7 Women's names in Zuǒ Zhuàn........................................................... 84 7.1 The rules of making names for women ............................................................ 84 7.2 Women with same names in Zuǒ Zhuàn ....................................................... 88 8 Conclusion and topics for further study ...................................... 90 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 93 3 Preface Firstly, I would like to thank my academic supervisor professor Christoph Harbsmeier for helping me through this thesis and my entire study at University of Oslo. He sets a good example for me as an intelligent scholar, an international citizen and a decent man. From the first time I met him at Frankfurt airport by accident, he began to give me a lot of help, and I really appreciate that, without his help I will not survive my first day in Norway. Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to Halvor Eifring, who taught me a lot about how to do academic works, and how to maintain a neutral attitude when judging things, and my very early idea of this thesis is also inspired by him. Last but not the least it is my pleasure to thank my family and friends, without their encouragement I will never be able to finish this thesis. 4 Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 Importance of names To a certain extent names of persons reflect many facts of human civilization. In many cultures personal names are vitally important. It surprises me to think about how much time we spend on our names, and how our names influence our lives in all sorts of ways. In western society, a very common example is so-called "alphabetism", which involves discrimination on the basis of the first letter of a name. When two patients, Adam and Zara, go to the same hospital, poor Zara have to wait after Adam, because who's first is quite often decided by first letter of people's name. Think about it: if both of them are in danger, Zara might dead because he has a "wrong name". If the story about Adam and Zara is only a joke, then the story about Chinese names can be much more serious. Across the whole of Chinese history, it is not difficult to find people who were killed simply because of issues related to their names. Around 300 AD, we are told there was a Chinese minister whose name is Wáng Zhuì 王 墜,which literally means "the falling of the king"1. This poor person was given the death penalty simply because emperor of the time did not approve of his name. He may have been the first person to die because having a "bad name" in Chinese history.2 As Chinese civilization progressed, people, especially emperors, paid more and more attention on their names, and it became a real matter of life and death. Sometimes Chinese emperors were over sensitive about names. This leads to people being unable to even realize that they made a terrible mistake about emperor's names. 1 In general a Chinese name can contain many different meanings, this is only one of them. 2 This case was first record in Zī zhì tōng jiàn資治通鑒, Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government , written by Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 in 1984 AD ,Beijing 北京: Yan Shan Press 燕山 出版社, 2000. 5 In Qing Dynasty a scholar called Chá Sìtíng 查嗣庭wrote a book called Wéi zhǐ lù 維止錄 3, which should be a very common title at that time. However, the story goes that the emperor of that time was called Yōng yōng zhèng Zhèng 雍正(1678 AD) 5, and he believed the 雍 正 title of this book was very dangerous for him, because weí 維and zhǐ 止 suggested that his Remove head royal title Yōng Zhèng 雍正will without a head wéi zhǐ (see the left picture), and this title could be a sign 维 止 that the author wanted to chop his head off. It is not surprising that the scholar end up dying a After removing the head of miserable death.6 emperor’s title, we got the name of the book. In Chinese history, not only emperors pay a lot of attentions to names, but also those bureaucrats in their service. Although their power was not as large as emperors, many of them still did some ridiculous things because of their names. There used to be a procurator called Tián Dēng 田登 (990 AD), because his given name dēng 登is a homophone of dēng 燈, which means lamp , he did not allow people to use this term in daily life, as a way of respecting his name. As a result, it is said people were not allowed to say "light the lamp" (diǎn dēng 點燈), instead they have to use the term "start a fire" (fàng huǒ放火), and unavoidably this stupid prohibition brought a lot of chaos to daily conversation ,as 3 Literally the title of this book means " record of habitation ", weí 維 is interchangeable with weí 為, which means "as", zhǐ 止 means habitation and lù 錄 means record. Origin of this title is a line from Shi Jing 詩經 (Classic of Poetry, Shanghai 上海: Hua Xia Press 華夏出版社, 1998) : “邦畿千裏，維民所止”. 5 Yōng Zhèng 雍正(1678) was the third emperor of Qing Dynasty, in fact Yong Zheng 雍正is his royal title, his official name is Aisin-Gioro Yǐnzhēn 愛新覺羅·胤禛. 6 This case was first recorded in Qīng shí lù 清實錄 (The record of Qing Dynasty, Shanghai 上 海: Zhonghua Book Company 中華書局, 1986 . ) volume 4, Qīng shì zōng shí lù 清世宗實錄, 9th April . 6 people had to "start a fire" at home almost every day. This story later became a Chinese proverb to mock bureaucracy: "procurators were allowed to start a fire, while common people were not allowed to start a light." (只許州官放火，不許百姓點燈) 7 1.2 Bibliography on personal names Since personal names are such a serious matter which influences many aspects of Chinese life, it is not surprise that Chinese scholars paid a great deal of attention to studying them. From ancient time until today, many works on Chinese names or onomastic were written, and many of them are remaining useful for studying Chinese names. 1.2.1 Books about names before modern times The most famous Chinese books about names is Bǎi jiā xìng 百家姓 (Hundred Family Surnames) . This is a classic Chinese text composed of common surnames in ancient China, which was composed in the early Song Dynasty and be used as an enlightened reading material until today. This book recorded about 400 common used Chinese surnames, and ordered them as rhyming poem in lines of eight characters. However, surnames in the book are not listed in the order of popularity; instead, the first four surnames listed were from the most powerful families at the time: First ,Zhào 趙 : surname of the Song Dynasty emperors Second, Qián 錢 : surname of the Kings of Wú and Yuè 吳越 Third , Sūn 孫 : surname of the Queens of Wú and Yuè 吳越 Fourth , Lǐ 李 : surname of the Kings of Nán Táng 南唐 7 This story was first recorded in Lǎo xué ān bǐ jì 老學庵筆記 written by Lù Yóu 陸遊 (1125 AD - 1210 AD), volume 5. 7 Bǎi jiā xìng might be the most well-known book